How to Pickle Onions

How to slice the onions

1. For a good vegetable side dish to grilled meat, for vegetable salads, or to garnish finished dishes, it is worth learning a simple method: how to pickle onions. I prefer to pickle rings of red onion. It is sweeter and looks nice in any dish. Red onions are usually more elongated, though you sometimes find almost flat ones.

2. Peel the onion and cut off the root end with a little margin, about 1 cm. It is better to leave the tail on: the onion is easier to slice when you can hold it by the tail.

3. Slice the onion crosswise into 4-5 mm “discs”. You need a very sharp knife so the rings cut evenly and don’t tear.

   If you like, you can simply cut the onion into thick strips, preferably lengthwise, along the fibers inside the layers.

4. Carefully separate the sliced “discs” into individual rings. I usually don’t pickle the inner part of the onion, made of small rings and the growing “shoot”. You can use it for a sauce, in soups or in main dishes.

   Often the outer layer of the onion comes out torn and the ring falls apart, and you can skip that too. Torn rings can be used if you wish.

How to pickle the onions

1. Put the onion in a deep bowl or a large cup. Season with freshly ground black pepper and add a level 0.5 tsp of sugar (2 g). When I pickle onions I often add 0.5 tsp of sumac, the dried ground berries of the sumac tree, an Eastern spice. It gives the onion a pleasant taste and color, and you can find it at any market.

2. Gently toss the onion and wait 5 minutes for the sugar to dissolve. I don’t salt the onion at the start of pickling, because liquid immediately begins to come out and the rings go limp.

3. Add 1 tbsp of wine vinegar, red or white. Toss again, cover the bowl with an upturned saucer and put it in the refrigerator for 45 minutes.

4. After pickling, drain off all the liquid. Don’t squeeze the onion out, or it will lose its shape. If it matters to you, you can rinse it with ice-cold water and let it drain. But there isn’t much vinegar there, and it doesn’t spoil the taste.

Serving

1. Finely chop the dill, parsley and cilantro, about 1 tbsp in all. Mix the herbs with the pickled onions. Everything is ready to use.

   If needed, you can salt the onions just before serving them as a side dish, and in salads you needn’t salt them at all.